Keeping Up With Maury
Pain
by Maury Feren

Today I am going to spend a little time talking about pain. I'm not sure where this is going to take me since there are so many aspects to this subject. It is a fact of life but it encompasses everyone at some point but we all try to escape one way or another.

It has always bothered me why no one has been able to answer this question. Do you have to suffer in order to enjoy the benefits of feeling good? Then there is pain and suffering. That is another facet that I might get to discuss a little later. But here is the big one. How do you put all of this together when your doctor tells you that you only has 6 months to live?

So how do we deal with that. How do you go about handling that kind of information. Its knockout stuff you don't know what to say or think. You look around and say to yourself "How does all of these things that I strive for in my lifetime fit into this picture". I have given everything that I have in me to achieve these goals and now when the end is so near how little meaning they have. Your whole attitude has changed.

Many times I'm sitting back and listen to a tale of woe by some of my friends and I fail to respond to it the way that I should. I am angry at myself because I know I should have listened better. The fact remains I believe implicitly you have to feel the blood running down your leg the same as the person telling the story before you can really get to understand it. Now the question is "Is it true or am I wrong about that assumption". Of course the answer vary according to the individual. It will change because of all of the differences and personalities.

I think the biggest change of all when someone is given the death edict you only have 6 months to live maybe a year at must. What do you do? How do you face it? Oh sure you have all those psychologists and philosophers telling you to live every day as if it was your last. You don't do that until your faced with that big one. Then of course it hits you and your whole aspects changes. You look at life differently. I wonder sometimes how you do that.

However, here I am heading towards my 100th year. I know tomorrows are going to be short. So what is my outlook. I have to eliminate all of those thoughts of death or it would drive me mad. So I go about my everyday routine trying to eliminate it or forgetting about it totally. Don't work but because its a Damoscle sword hanging over my head I can push it aside but it will return to bit me.

There is another thing that bothers me. I spoke about pain and suffering. We all try to escape pain by absorbing many of the pain relaxing pills that are available. Every doctor that I have meet in my own hospital experience has suggested pain pills. They all said "There is no reason to have pain and suffer." Obviously they are mostly aware of the danger of becoming addicted to drugs like Morphine. However, that has not spread to a great extent and pain killers has become a disturbing force in our society.

We all want to eliminate pain so we are willing to gamble on our ability to resist addiction in order to be relieved. Not so easy I said when I was hit with all the postoperative pain I wasn't so ready to give up my thoughts rather take to the pain pill so I wont have to suffer. I founded that I am like the rest of us. I was going to take the easy way out because I know it would work.

Now we are back to starters and here is the main point I wanted to bring out. You may disagree with this premise then there is those of us who has benefited from pain because it has also brought about self improvement. It has enabled us to take a more personal look at ourselves making us better individuals. We may listen better, respond better to the other person needs. Its only when we meet people that have suffered a similar lost that we turn to them and they become our closest friends.

Hopefully, there is no one we know personally has to go through this process. However, It is the only way you can find out what you would do if faced with any of the situations that I wrote about. I have to add my our personal perspective it has given me another way to examine my life.

Living and dying is all part of the cycle of life. You are apart of this cycle. No one escapes and no one can change that. But one major thing that I have learned is that I have become more aware of the beauty of life and how much out there I have missed until today. This has made me a better person more ready to face this beautiful world then never before. (Author has not been issued a death verdict. It is only an assumption at this point.)